


Pledges of Allegiance

by Fierceawakening



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Branding, M/M, Rough Sex, Sticky Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 06:59:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fierceawakening/pseuds/Fierceawakening
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Very belated holiday giftfic for a prompt asking for Starscream's branding. I'd written before about Starscream getting branded in Desiderata (though that was G1 Starscream so it's a little different.) But I wanted to explore how Megatron thought about the whole thing. I also wanted to explore more of the personal side of it and what it means to the characters rather than focusing on the political significance of taking the brand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pledges of Allegiance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Decepticonsensual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/gifts).



Megatron's optics flared brightly as he stared down at the Seeker kneeling in front of him. His claws tightened reflexively, one curled at his side, the other gripping tight at the thin handle of the tool he held.

The tool's opposite end glowed bright with incandescent heat. Instead of being red-hot, it blazed purple, its lavender glow a pale shade of the color that everyone in Kaon had long ago grown to associate with Megatron and his followers.

Megatron smiled as he lifted it. The light burned his optics, wide-open as they were, but that was only fitting. The symbol of his armies would soon sear itself into the vision of everyone on Cybertron.

But for now, the only thing he would be branding with his mark was the mech kneeling in front of him. His lip plates twisted into a smile, and he licked his fangs in anticipation.

"Starscream, Winglord of Vos," he said, his voice soft.

He should, perhaps, have been louder. Mechs crowded around them, their optics red pinpricks gleaming from amid the crowd. They watched and waited, flicking their wings.

Megatron had never seen so many wings _._ The light flickered off them as they twitched, winking from one wing's surface to the next in a gleaming, fluttering cacophony. The Seekers were packed so closely together that Megatron found it hard to tell where one frame began and the next ended. Many looked so similar to one another that only variations in color distinguished them. Some went so far as to look exactly the same as their leaders or wingmates, a testament to the bonds of service or loyalty they shared.

Things were different in Kaon and the Badlands. Many mechs were mass-produced, and it wasn't unusual to come across another mech with a nearly identical frames. But the Seekers of Vos came in only two variations. Some, like Starscream, were small, their slender frames streamlined for speed and agility. The others were larger, their broad frames almost as large as a gladiator's, massive wingspans stretching from their backs.

And everywhere red optics looked out from the glittering sea of wings: crimson lights, embers still hot with the flame of war. Vos had burnt to ash, and the flame that lit their optics was the last bright heat that would ever come from the city.

Megatron hoped it would be enough for them. If they ever hoped to rebuild the spires and aeries of their home, it would have to be.

But right now, it wasn't the Seekers who concerned him. They had nowhere else to go, after all. They were as good as his already.

Right now, only one of the winged throng mattered.

The young Winglord had clearly seen better days. His plating, normally a lustrous silver, was blackened and burnt. Soot darkened the scratches and dents spotting his frame, and an ugly gash crudely welded together tore across one wing.

His face, too, was dark, the metal clouded and smeared, the seams dark with dirty smoke. Megatron could almost smell it on him - the scent of a city in flames.

Even the horn of his authority was broken, the tip jagged and singed where some wayward blaster fire had scorched it away.

But his optics were wheels of fire, white blazing suns ringed with red. This was not a mech whose spark had guttered out with the fall of his City. This was a mech who blazed hot with the desire for revenge.

He glared at Megatron even as he knelt, thin lip plates twisted in derision. The jagged edge of his chipped horn stabbed at the sky.

"Lord Megatron," he hissed. He looked from the Megatron to the branding iron the warlord held, his optics irising wide in a futile attempt to adjust to its light.

 _And perhaps in fear, as well,_ Megatron reflected. His smile widened, revealing a mouthful of sharpened fangs.

But Starscream was not one to give in to fear, it seemed. His back arched, pushing out his chest, presenting it to Megatron. His wings quivered, a tremor running through his frame.

It looked almost like desire.

Megatron's spike twitched, tucked away safely behind its cover. His spark pulsed, a deep, blazing heat.

The first night after Vos fell, he had taken Starscream, shoving the Winglord to the ground and tearing the cover of his valve aside with his bare claws. There had been nothing tender in their coupling. Megatron growled in remembered pleasure. He'd held Starscream's head pressed to the floor as he battered his way inside, the rim of Starscream's valve denting as he forced his way in. The rough entry had drawn energon, faintly glowing as it dripped from Starscream's valve, mixed with the lubricant that proved his violence was welcome.

Starscream had not wanted tenderness. Not when the smoke of Vos's burning still clung to his damaged and dirtied frame.

The keens and wails that Megatron wrenched from him, driving deep inside him, were the only way he could mourn for his city. Starscream had welcomed the violence. It had forced him to give vent to his despair.

And with it had come pleasure in the end, his cries of anguish twisted and tempered and reformed into gasping, choked release.

Megatron had taken many mechs to berth - and not bothered with a berth with many others. He was no stranger to taking what he wanted.

But nothing had prepared him for the desperate heat he had found in a young princeling who had lost his city and his purpose.

Part of him wanted Starscream again, here,  _now._ Part of him looked out at the band of refugees his princeling led and sneered in derision.

 _They can wait_ , it whispered, coiling through his processor.

But there was more than one way to consummate a union - and more than one way to lay claim to something, whether a mech or an army.

"I have offered you and your Seekers safe haven in Kaon and any land where my dominion extends. The fall of Vos was a tragedy, a desecration of the last place on Cybertron that could be called sacred. Its aeries and towers were marvels, shining testaments to the power of Cybertron in its full glory. And to the Seekers themselves. The mechs who follow me now were once the mighty fist of an empire; the Seekers were once the wings on which it spread."

He gestured with his free hand, spreading wide one hand so that the crowd - and its leader - could see the razor-sharp tips of each of his sharpened claws. The cannon mounted atop his arm flared with bright heat as his weapons systems hummed to life, the lavender light in its depths an echo of the purple light surrounding the branding iron's white-hot device.

He closed his hand again, clenching it into a tight fist. "But more than safe haven, I offer you a place. I offer you full and equal rank among my Decepticon armies. At my side, your Winglord will lead you against those who destroyed your city. They toppled Vos's spires and sent your aeries crashing to the ground. You will repay them in kind, raining death and fire down upon them from the skies.

"I promise you this. And I will make good on my promise. The Decepticons are strong. Already the old order falls before us as we trample it under our treads. With you fighting alongside us, we will be unstoppable."

Megatron had long been a showman. In the gladiator games of Kaon, one did not last long without the ability to play a crowd. He let his optics sweep over the gathered mass of wings, his gaze catching and holding the burning lights that stared back at him.

But that was only technique. In the end, it was Starscream's optics he stared into as he spoke again.

"And you will have your vengeance," he said.

The Seekers revved their engines in applause. Whether they wanted to submit to Megatron or not, he was their only hope.

And they wanted Cybertron to burn, as Vos had, and Megatron had vowed that it would.

It would have to be enough.

Starscream laughed, a fey trill that hung in the air. His wings fluttered and he licked his lips in blatant invitation. He gazed back at Megatron, his optics bright, the same crooked smirk as before twisting his lip plates.

Only a tilt of his hips could have made the invitation more blatant.

There was more he had planned. A pledge of loyalty, a promise to seal the alliance. A vow of service from the Winglord and his armada.

He said nothing more. It was not necessary. The Seekers watched, silent but for the rustling of their wings and the cycling of air through their intakes.

"Lord Megatron," Starscream said again. He spoke in the same low voice he had used before. His words were loud enough for the crowd to hear - but clearly not intended for them.

They were meant for the audio receptors of only one other.

"Very well," Megatron said.

He grinned in triumph, his fangs gleaming as they caught the light of the branding iron. With a swift, decisive movement, he brought it down, pressing it to the bared expanse of Starscream's chest plate.

He saw Starscream throw back his head, the thin, pointed face contorting as the mouth plates opened wide. Then his cry filled Megatron's audio receptors, shrill and piercing, a cry wrenched from the depths of the Winglord's spark. The high pitch stung Megatron's audio receptors. They rang painfully, the cry reverberating in them over and over.

Starscream's frame convulsed, his wings clicking frantically. Smoke rose up from the point of impact as Megatron drew the brand away.

Starscream's optics flickered as he twitched, struggling to regain himself. They irised wide, unseeing, and at last narrowed to focus once again.

On Megatron, and Megatron alone.

He snickered, a tiny, private sound, and his faceplates shifted into a smirk as he looked down at the blackened, smoking insignia seared into his chest.

He said nothing, neither vow of loyalty nor curse at what Megatron had done and had forced him to do.

Megatron did not press the point. He simply listened, waiting for the echoes of Starscream's wail to fade away.

He had heard such cries before, after all.


End file.
